Speaking as a white, male, cis gendered, heterosexual the way I see it is if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem. If white men want to read theory and really (I mean on a deep, visceral level) understand the struggles of the oppressed that’s good. Do all that stuff, join a movement or party, engage in praxis, fine. However, white people need to sit down and take a backseat when it comes to defining party lines, organizing tactics, determining what viewpoints are centered, prioritising who gets help etc. If you’re not willing to do that then you’re one of the people Sakai is talking about in the book and you probably can’t be trusted to do the real work of building socialism in an organising space.
Socialists in the Imperial Core aren’t going to be able to deprogram 90% of the white settler establishment. Focus on working with the 10% that doesn’t want to put you in a camp. After the revolution socialists will have to rely on education programs and a strong proletarian militia to do the work of fixing the deeply broken society they inherited.
Socialists in the Imperial Core aren’t going to be able to deprogram 90% of the white settler establishment.
I feel this too. I’ve had those “dinner table conversations” with my fox-news watching family countless times, and after painstaking hours I can get them to agree that mayyyybe immigrants aren’t the problem, and the rich are at fault. Next time I visit home, all that’s erased: they’re back to hating immigrants again. The propaganda machinery plays a big role, but IMO the social bribery plays the biggest factor. White workers don’t need to ally with immigrants or imperialized peoples, because their bourgeiosie has already guaranteed them a stable lifestyle, and has always been their ally. Politics just becomes a “choose-your-own-adventure” story, or a team sport, not anything that affects you materially.
Agreed. I certainly don’t think my white supremacist, “right to work but still in a union” father is going to change after 60 years of being submerged in the bullshit.
Speaking as a white, male, cis gendered, heterosexual the way I see it is if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem. If white men want to read theory and really (I mean on a deep, visceral level) understand the struggles of the oppressed that’s good. Do all that stuff, join a movement or party, engage in praxis, fine. However, white people need to sit down and take a backseat when it comes to defining party lines, organizing tactics, determining what viewpoints are centered, prioritising who gets help etc. If you’re not willing to do that then you’re one of the people Sakai is talking about in the book and you probably can’t be trusted to do the real work of building socialism in an organising space.
Socialists in the Imperial Core aren’t going to be able to deprogram 90% of the white settler establishment. Focus on working with the 10% that doesn’t want to put you in a camp. After the revolution socialists will have to rely on education programs and a strong proletarian militia to do the work of fixing the deeply broken society they inherited.
I feel this too. I’ve had those “dinner table conversations” with my fox-news watching family countless times, and after painstaking hours I can get them to agree that mayyyybe immigrants aren’t the problem, and the rich are at fault. Next time I visit home, all that’s erased: they’re back to hating immigrants again. The propaganda machinery plays a big role, but IMO the social bribery plays the biggest factor. White workers don’t need to ally with immigrants or imperialized peoples, because their bourgeiosie has already guaranteed them a stable lifestyle, and has always been their ally. Politics just becomes a “choose-your-own-adventure” story, or a team sport, not anything that affects you materially.
Agreed. I certainly don’t think my white supremacist, “right to work but still in a union” father is going to change after 60 years of being submerged in the bullshit.